Trip Report: Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is a 300-acre Virginia theme park for history nerds. So if you’re looking for a tacky road-side tourist trap with cartoonish mascots wearing tri-cornered hats, nothing to see here. You also will not find a Dollywood-style amusement park, which will disappoint if you are fantasizing about what would happen if the Las Vegas strip hooked up with HeeHaw and produced a love child.

Smart phones were ubiquitous. 

Colonial Williamsburg is more like the illegitimate child of Doris Goodwin Kearns and a Ken Burns PBS documentary. The private foundation that operates Colonial Williamsburg has invested substantial resources to restore a portion of the present day city to its 1774 essence. That year was the eve of the American Revolution and Williamsburg was the British capital of Virginia, the most populated and economically productive colony in America. The Capitol building and Governor’s Mansion and dozens of shops and residences have been restored and refurbished. The foundation also employs craftsmen and staff in period dress to populate the village and interact with visitors. Imagining yourself in colonial times is easy, assuming you're not distracted by masses of tourists wandering cobblestone paths with thumbs and noses attached to their smart phones.

Three generations of our family spent three days at Williamsburg over the Christmas holidays. We stayed in a three-bedroom condo a short drive from the visitor’s center, from where you can walk or catch a shuttle to the village. There are also lodging options on site, but we found less expensive choices with an on-line search of the billion or so condo developments and suite hotels in the immediate vicinity. All three generations– from the five-year-old kindergartner to her seventy-one-year-old grandmother – enjoyed this mini-vacation.

Getting there, however, can be challenging. Many visitors drive to Colonial Williamsburg from the Washington, D.C., area because either they live there, like us, or they fly there for vacation and then make their way to south to Williamsburg. According to Google Maps, the visitor’s center is 160 miles from our home in Bethesda and takes two and a half hours to drive via I-95 South. HA HA HA! Two and a half hours! Good one, Google, you got me on that one! 

Perhaps annoyance at slow-moving Interstate traffic is a remnant of our western roots. Back in our former lives in Idaho and Wyoming, 160 miles on an Interstate highway is about a two-hour pedal-to-the-metal trip. Here, not so much. I-95 between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, is significantly different that the stretch of, say, I-80 between Rock Springs and Cheyenne. One is long, narrow parking lot and the other is an autobahn for four-wheel drive pickup trucks with gun racks. We left Bethesda on a Friday morning and arrived in Williamsburg four hours (and forty-seven when will be theres) later. Return trip on a Sunday morning also lasted four hours. Maybe leaving at two in the morning would produce a better result. Otherwise, my best advice is don’t be in a hurry and expect to share the road with others.

The five-year-old earns her keep.

As a history nerd, the best part for me was the opportunity to watch and interact with people demonstrating day-to-day colonial living. If you’re interested in colonial history, there are libraries full of books available to the curious. But the opportunity to watch a carpenter turn rough-cut oak into clapboard siding using eighteenth century tools is not available in a book. Nor is watching a woman demonstrate how she use coals and an open fire to prepare anything that could be prepared in a modern kitchen. Williamsburg is filled with similar opportunities to observe and interact.

Most of the staff dressed in period clothing will talk to you has if you and all of us were existing in modern times. Not so with some of our “guides” for major attractions (the Governor’s Mansion and the Capitol building, for example) who insist on inhabiting 1774. Talking to actors deeply immersed in character is completely awesome for about two minutes. Then it becomes a pain in the ass. If, for example, you ask a question about Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, you will be informed that Mr. Jefferson is a member of the House of Burgesses here in 1774 Williamsburg, but this presidency business is a complete mystery. If you have questions, be prepared to explain yourself.

Visitor: Could you repeat that? I couldn’t hear you because of the train that just passed. 

Guide:What is this train of which you speak, kind sir? We here in seventeen and seventy four Colonial Williamsburg have never heard of such a thing! 

Visitor (pointing): Um, the train that just passed us right over there. 

Guide: This is fascinating! Tell me more about this train, good sir! 

Visitor:Well, um, it runs on a track and carries cargo and is pulled by an engine? And the tracks are right over there? 

Guide: Oh, you mean like our wagons haul our merchandise to market! But what, fine fellow, is an engine? Is it what people from whence you hail name your horses? 

Visitor: Um, yes. Sure. A horse. . .

Guide: Excellent, my dear sir! 

Visitor:Great. One more thing. Is it OK to take photographs inside the mansion?

Guide: My gracious sir, what is this photograph of which you speak?

Visitor: Never mind. 

A couple of other things to keep in mind if you are heading to Williamsburg for the first time:

• Allow at least two days. You need at least two days to see everything, and three would be better. We stuck to Colonial Williamsburg, but two other major history sites are in the vicinity – Jamestown, the original British settlement in the Americas, and Yorktown, the site of the pivotal battle of the American Revolution. We’re saving those for a separate trip.

• Prepare to walk. My mother does not get around like she used to and was ready to return to the condo at the end of the day. My wife had a tender metatarsal and was ready to return to the condo at the end of each day. The five-year-old spent a lot of time riding on dad’s shoulders so dad was ready to return to the condo at the end of the day as well. The shuttle buses are convenient, but you’re going to be on your feet a lot.

• Plan in advance for lunch. On a busy day there are a few thousand or more tourists in Colonial Williamsburg while the entire village has seating for about twelve diners. We discovered this the hard way. Every place within walking distance that served food had a waiting list of more than an hour. We final put ourselves on a wait list and make an emergency stop at a shop selling Virginia peanuts to hold us over.

Bottom line: Colonial Williamsburg is a quality family vacation experience. We spent parts of three days, which was about the right amount of time. There’s no bling but there’s plenty of authentic restoration and entertaining and informative interaction, even if you’re not a history nerd.